Residential energy-efficient lighting adoption survey

Abstract

Artificial lighting has transformed how humans relate to the world, by improving productivity and making spaces habitable. The adoption of energy-efficient solid-state lighting, light emitting diodes (LED), has been suggested as a way of reducing energy used for lighting. Such predictions rest on the assumptions of constant light density and time of use in the future, assumptions not supported by past trends. In order to better understand how consumers choose to adopt energy-efficient artificial lighting for their homes; a survey was administered in four major urban areas: Chicago, Houston, New York, and San Francisco. Major insights from the survey indicate that if lighting becomes less expensive through adopting energy-efficient light sources, there is the potential for consumers to use considerably more, and the point at which the price for LED lighting yields broad market penetration is about one half of current prices. Regional factors such as lighting subsidies, taxation policies, laws, and educational information are also explored.

Notes

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the following funding sources at the University of Illinois at Chicago for support of this work: Chancellor's Graduate Research Fellowship, Provost's Award for Graduate Research, and the Institute for Environmental Science and Policy Predoctoral Fellowship. Additionally, we thank the Survey Research Laboratory of the University of Illinois at Chicago for assistance with the design of the survey instrument used in this study. The authors respectfully thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments on this article.